Motown hit writer Deke Richards dies

American songwriter and producer Deke Richards has died, Universal Music has confirmed, he was 68.

Born Dennis Lussier, Richards was best known as part of the hit making team The Corporation, the in-house song-writing and production team at Motown Records in the 1960s and 1970s, who together wrote and produced many of the label’s biggest hits, perhaps not notably the Jackson 5’s first three number ones: ‘I Want You Back’, ‘ABC’ and ‘The Love You Save’.

Richards died at the Whatcom Hospice House in Bellingham, Washington after losing a battle with oesophageal cancer.

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